


Thaw

by Yoite



Series: Some Say The World Will End In Fire [7]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Childhood Memories, Coldwave Are Bad At Feelings, Introspection, M/M, Melodrama, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Past Rape/Non-con, Rape Aftermath, Soap Opera, Timeline What Timeline, Wentworth Miller's Eyes, coldwave, playground love, so much cheese, they finally talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-26
Updated: 2017-01-26
Packaged: 2018-09-20 01:43:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9469847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yoite/pseuds/Yoite
Summary: YES. They finally talk. Part 7 of my Coldwave series; this won't make much sense unless you've read the other parts.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry it took me ages to update. Real life got in the way, and also, this chapter was very, very difficult to write. I hope the characters' thoughts and behaviour make sense. I really did my best to get the characterisation right, but it's not easy to imagine Mick and Len in this kind of situation! Please let me know if you have any suggestions for improvement. :)
> 
> Also, this is the first time I'm departing from the canon timeline because the last chapter already had me in episode 15 and, obviously, I need Len to stay alive for a little while. So, basically, episode 15 is now about 3-4 episodes long. XD There will be a "convenient" in-story explanation..

_".. I think I've seen enough of hate.."_

* * *

 

“Hey buddy, how about a game?”

Mick knocked on the cabin door with his free hand, a pack of cards in the other. He felt an increasingly urgent need to remind the inhabitant of that cabin that he could play cards just as well as anyone. Especially a certain female, blonde anyone. Well, maybe not _just_ as well. Ever since juvie times, he’d lost every single game of cards against Len. But that wasn’t on the long list of Mick’s concerns right now. On second thought, the list wasn’t actually all that long. It contained precisely one item. Which was precisely one more than the arsonist felt comfortable with.

He knocked again, less patiently this time, if the first time could have been called patient. The non-result was the same. Mick pressed an ear to the door. He knew Len was in there, another consequence of him not at all stalking his nowadays doubtful friend. Which was becoming pretty obvious to everyone by now, certainly not helped by the fact that the Waverider was stuck in a time bubble of sorts and the crew was becoming increasingly bored and nosy as they were waiting for Gideon to get them out. This whole situation was the one item on Mick’s list.

“Snart! We should -"

Talk? That’s what he intended to say, but what to say after that? And _after_ _that_? In the past – that is, the _actual_ past, when time was comfortingly unidirectional – they used to settle their disagreements without much talking. Len had always been too cool for all that crap, too arrogant and cynical and unshaken. Apart from that one time when he was shaking in Mick’s arms -

The arsonist grunted, rolling his forehead against the cold metal as he leaned his body weight into the door. He really fucked up this time. He crossed a line he could not uncross. He f-.. No. He f-.. Damn it! He _felt_ something he could not unfeel. He wasn’t sure what it was, but it made him stay up all night and replay the events in his head. It made one part of him hard and another part of him strangely soft, and all of him shrink with guilt – something he had never allowed into his thoughts, or he would have gone crazy a long time ago. And now..

What was he even supposed to tell Len if he had no idea what had gotten into him? One second, all he’d wanted was to clarify those messed up discoveries that were suddenly creeping into his head, and then the next second.. - Screw the time bastards and their experiments! He’d never asked for this gift of the fourth dimension! He’d never asked to be able to look at his friend and watch their entire lives rolled out in front of him, all the times their paths have crossed for a while, as teenagers, as young men, and more recently, after they had both started to look a little worn.

To see all those moments he never thought of questioning fit together into a perfect jigsaw. The way his partner always disappeared one day after they finished a job, or a couple of jobs, without ever saying goodbye. Mick could never predict when it would happen exactly, but in the days coming up to Len’s departure his partner would be gloomier than usual, more withdrawn and locked in himself, as if something were eating him up from the inside. They never talked about it. When his friend was gone Mick drank more beer and punched more people and generally wasted his life away as a petty criminal until Len came back, usually just about the time when Mick stopped resenting him and started running out of money. Len only had to call and Mick would jump like a damn excited little puppy. It had always been that way. There was something in Len’s eyes that made the most compelling argument. Because they had the power to turn Mick into something more than himself. Or something less, when Len looked at him with indignation every time he went off with a hooker, or any random piece of meat that would have him, which Mick liked to put down to the fact that his friend just didn’t know how to have fun sometimes. And yet, life was much more fun with Len around. With time, a strange sort of bitterness had crept into their partnership, but before all that..

Mick remembered spending some of the happiest days of his life when they were both just lads fresh out of prison, broke and rough camping out in the woods. They were talking about their first heist and he was teaching Len how to fly-fish. It was a scorching hot mid-August. They were standing in the river naked and water was running down Len’s back like little drops of sunshine. Mick remembered it like it were yesterday. The first time he touched Len, stretching out a hand and pulling the blood soaked boy to his feet. When those wide blue orbs took him in and made him feel like someone had seen him for the very first time in his life.

Mick had never understood it, any of it, because Len was a guy, obviously, and for at least a hundred other reasons, too, but _now_ he did. It might have taken him almost three decades, but now he _understood_ , or at least he was _starting_ to. He just needed Len to know that he could _see_ it now, and yes, he was scared as shit, and no, he didn’t know how to express it, but he -  

Suddenly and surprisingly, the door that Mick was leaning against wasn’t there for him to lean against. He stumbled into the room head first, dropping the cards and only barely managing to stay on his feet. When he caught himself there was the familiar sight of the cold gun pointing at his nose. It was in no way surprising, or even unusual, but it felt more real than ever before. Mick looked up. Len’s eyes were like the little blue flicker at the heart of a flame cone that looks the coldest but burns the worst.

“How often are you gonna pull that thing on me, pal?” The arsonist grumbled, wearily. “You never had the guts.”

“That was before”, Len’s lip curled in well-calculated snarl, “you chose to rape me out of the blue.”

It was a punch to the stomach. Slowly, Mick straightened out, the gun following suit as he lifted his face, not without effort. He shouldn’t have talked about a lack of guts. He’d never thought Len would use those words. He’d never thought it would hurt so much, even though he had been accused – and guilty – of worse. But never this.

“Didn’t feel that way”, wasn’t really good enough. But it was as far as he could get his tongue to move.

Len was not letting him out of sight even for a blink of an eye as he brought his second hand up to the gun. Possibly to prevent it from shaking. Possibly not.

“I might have overestimated your capacities. But which part of ‘no’ did you have a problem with?”

Mick opened his mouth, having sufficiently recovered to be ready to point out that, maybe, it was the part where Len was rock hard in his hand, moaning against his lips as Mick licked his tongue. Or the part where he made no attempts to push him away when Mick released his hands. Or even the one where Len was sobbing in pleasure like a little slut with every thrust until he came so hard on Mick’s cock the arsonist had to shut his mouth for him.

Mick could have said any of those things. And looking at his friend now, the way Len’s eyes were gleaming from his otherwise unmoved face as two feverish patches of red started to appear on his pale cheeks, Mick knew it was just what Len expected him to say, no, _wanted_ him to say. Just another snarky comeback, they had always been good at exchanging those. Len just needed that last push, a final reason to pull the trigger without regret. For once in his life, Mick could read his friend like an open book, and yet he did not care about that in the least. All he could think of right now was how beautiful Len was, how _perfect_. How much he needed to touch him again. How he’d missed having him around, how he had always, _always_ missed having him around when he was gone, so much so he had to numb himself with alcohol until he forgot the reason why he was drinking, if he ever knew it at all.

So he closed his mouth, and when he opened it again what came out shocked them both in equal measures.

“Sorry.”

“ _What_?!”

“I’m sorry.”

Once he had said it Mick knew he meant it, too, more sharply than ever before. All of a sudden, he felt strangely weak. His legs gave in and he dropped to his knees, burying his face in two huge, trembling hands. It was as if someone had cut through a knot that had been growing in his chest. Suddenly, it all came sputtering out of him uncontrollably.

“I don’t- I don’t understand how.. You don’t know what they did to me, Lenny.. Now everything is different but I don’t know how to- Fuck. When I was with _them_ , the first time- When I was there, all I could think about was how much I _hated_ you, how much I wanted to _hurt_ you.. Every morning when I woke up, every night, all I could see was your fucking face, it kept me alive, just imagining that I’d pay you back for betraying me, _us_ \- for _abandoning_ me, for every time you abandoned me, because I was never smart enough for you, because you- Damn it! I wanted to _kill_ you, and then you were _asking_ me to kill you, and you were looking at me like- It’s different now. I just wanted to tell you, I don’t _hate_ you now..”

He kept jerking his head back and forth again and again, as if trying to force some more meaningful words out of it, but it was all he could muster:

“.. I don’t- I don’t _hate_ you now- I’m sorry, Lenny-”

Until Len shrieked “Stop it!” in such a completely uncharacteristic manner that Mick did indeed stop fidgeting about on the floor and rubbing his forehead so vehemently as if aiming to expose his brain not just figuratively, but also literally. When he removed his hands from his face the cold gun was still pointed vaguely in his direction, but now it was definitely shaking. Len was an excellent marksman. Mick had never known him not in control of his weapon. Or the tone of his voice, for that matter.

“We’re criminals, we don’t _apologise_! Get up! And don’t call me that!”

Mick stared at him through a blurry veil, catching his breath, confused.

“What? ‘Lenny’?”

“You never called me that!”

“Yes, I did. When we were kids, remember?”

Those gold-hued late summer days. They had caught their first fish, and Len smiled. Mick had never seen him smile like that before. Where had all the time gone?

“And you called me..”, he finally got back to his feet, scratching his dome, “.. well, er, ‘Mick’, I guess.”

It almost looked like Len was about to smile again, just a tiny upwards curl at the corner of his mouth. Mick wiped his eyes to get a better look at his friend, but by that time Len had already turned his back on him, the hand with the gun hanging limply by his side.

Mick stood there like a stuffed dummy for a little while. Usually, he liked to complain about Len calling all the shots, but right now he would have welcomed a little guidance. Obviously, the last time he decided to show some initiative didn’t turn out too well. Finally, he dared to take a little step forward, or as little as his huge feet and bulky build would allow.

“It doesn’t have to be like that, buddy.”

A couple more unusually quiet steps. Len did not move from where he stood, straight and silent.

“We don’t have to _fight_.”

They were mere inches apart now, and as soon as Mick realised that Len was not going anywhere he very, very cautiously laid his hands on his friend’s shoulders. The younger man flinched a little, and Mick waited with his breath caught deep in his throat to see if Len was going to shake off his hands, punch him, shoot him, any kind of normal, Len-like response. Nothing of the sort occurred.

“It could just be..”

Slowly, Mick let his fingers slide along the curve of Len’s shoulders and down his arms before slipping underneath, placing both hands on his stomach and lightly pulling him back against his chest.

“.. like _this_ ”, he breathed in Len’s ear, resisting the temptation to press his lips to that inviting patch of warm skin. Mick did not even recognise himself. It was the exact opposite of how he would usually behave with someone he desired. And yet it felt better than anything had ever felt. For a moment, Mick indulged himself in the fantasy that-

“No.”

“Huh.”

“It can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because that’s not me.”

Suddenly and quite randomly, Mick realised that Len had lost that distinctive drawl he’d picked up God knows when or why. Mick had almost forgotten what Len’s natural manner of speaking sounded like, but he knew he’d missed it like hell. For a second, the younger man’s thin fingers came to rest on top of his, just a second longer than they had to before Len pulled Mick’s hands away.

“And that’s not you either.”

From one moment to the next, the space in front of Mick was empty. The space inside of him did not fare much better.

“Don’t ever touch me again.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. Comments are always very welcome. :)
> 
> Writing this chapter gave me some qualms, so I feel the need to point out that, of course, Mick had no right to question whether "no means no" in his head. But for storytelling purposes I had to put my own morals aside. Hope it all makes sense from Mick's POV.
> 
> I have already started the next chapter, so hopefully it won't take me too long to update.
> 
> There will be 3 more chapters now!


End file.
